The last of the antlers …

Christmas Eve and the reindeers arrive ...

It's always a little gloomy when the festivity is over and the antlers get packed up for another year but there's also something reassuring about the world returning to normal and the return to a routine.  This year I indulged in epic amounts of Soprano, discovered a new cocktail of sloe gin and champagne (I'd run out of tonic water, but you can only manage one so on a cost per drink basis I think very economical, and knit my Port O'Leith sweater and collar.  I ended up making a bonus cuff as well (see below for notes on displacement activity).  Husband described this as "anachronistic" but today in the sudden hail storm that swept over St Albans, my hands couldn't have been warmer.  

The hail storm might have made a change from the recent trend for a Deluge a Day except that it came shortly on the heels of the hail.  What a relief, it would have been very disorientating not to have flash flooding on our unfinished road, and I'm not sure what my feet would have thought if they had finally dried out after several weeks of near trench-foot conditions.  Anyhoo, I wore my new sweater and it's fantastically warm - can't speak highly enough of the S&J chunky from its lustrous hand to its sheen in the finished garment; just lovely.  And … here it is, the finished jumper with notes on my Ravelry page:

That is my third Toft Beginners Beret perched aloft the sweater there - it keeps taking itself off on adventures and having to be reknit but it's so quick to do and I love it, so it keeps on keeping on in new incarnations.  

As is always the case, I've managed to procrastinate and sniffle my way through the break in a fug of Vicks and Lemsip steam (you can just make out the red nose in the picture above) without achieving half the things I wanted to.  So I'm sitting at the dining table now, this is the last bit of displacement activity and then I'm knuckling down to some proper reading, writing and general busyness.  You hear, that's what I'm doing.  No more distractions.  Not a one.  Hang on, I think there's some fluff over there, I should hoover that up.  And lordy, look at the cobwebs, best deal with those.  Actually the fire is on, and the reading is interesting so there's really no excuse.  If I turn one of the lights off, I can't see the cobwebs or dust so I really am knuckling down now.  Honest.  

I will just cut myself a slice of Christmas cake - ought to try and get it finished, not least because I've another jar of the Pink Whisk's amazing boozy fruit to make up into another cake and if I don't get them eaten soon, when will the healthy living for which January is famed get started. 

Nothing changes really does it - a habit for easy distraction is a difficult one to break, what are the chances that 2014 will be the year it happens ...